The Amusement Archive

Wonder Eggs was a Japanese theme park opened in February 1992 by Namco. It was notable for being the first theme park opened by a video game company, and featured rides and attractions themed to Namco properties. Initially very popular, Wonder Eggs saw dwindling attendance towards the end of the 90s. The park was closed in December 2000 and was demolished thereafter, replaced by an apartment complex.

The most notable ride at Wonder Eggs was the immersive Tower of Druaga shooting dark ride that was fully themed to the game.

Sky Whirl was a three-armed ferris wheel that was located at Six Flags Great America and California's Great America which both opened in 1976. The unique ride was designed by Intamin and operated at the parks until 2000 and 1997, respectively. There were two additional installations of this ride model in South Korea and Japan in the 1980s, both of which are defunct as well.

Hard Rock Park was a $250 million, highly-licensed theme park located in Myrtle Beach, SC that opened in 2007. Notable rides included the B&M looper Led Zeppelin: The Ride and Nights in White Satin, a Sally dark ride themed to the Moody Blues song of the same name. Due mostly to the Great Recession, the park was an abysmal failure and consequentially lost the Hard Rock name and music licenses. The park reopened in 2008 as Freestyle Music Park, which bombed even harder and proved to be massively unpopular among parkgoers. The park went entirely defunct in 2009 and was abandoned. The rides were sold off or destroyed.

The facade of Nights in White Satin. There is a video on YouTube that shows the entire ride and it's worth a watch. This ride was considered to be one of the greatest dark rides ever made. When the park was returned and lost the music licenses, the ride was changed to the Monstars of Rock, which is considered to be one of the worst dark rides ever made.

Sign and promotional pictures for the Big Bad Wolf (1984-2009), an Arrow Dynamics swinging coaster once located at Busch Gardens Williamsburg in Virginia USA. Despite being an incredibly popular ride for its entire run, the difficult decision was made to shut down the beloved ride forever in 2009 due to decades of use of the then new type of coaster, rising maintenance costs, and an inability to find replacement parts due to the ride’s manufacturer, Arrow Dynamics, going out of business back in 2002.

The steel Zierer multi-launching coaster Verbolten now stands where The Big Bad Wolf once imposingly stood, with its famous first drop cascading down the hill at a top speed of 48 mph (a relatively slow speed, but in a swinging car, much more intense) and swinging the suspended train gracefully over a picturesque lake in the woods. In fact, The Big Bad Wolf was lightly themed to the idea of a savage wolf tearing through an old German village and forest, complete with building facades and thick trees and vegetation for the passengers to swiftly zip through. As a tribute to the former attraction, Verbolten's first drop is an inverted clone of its predecessor, and the theme is largely similar, the only big difference being you were a speedy haunted car instead of an untamed wolf on the move. Verbolten is generally regarded by fans and the general public alike to be a solid ride and a worthy replacement, but those who were able to ride the rare, relatively unique model of roller coaster lament the loss of this legendary ride to this day.

1981 postcard for the Demon (1977-1987) rollercoaster that was formerly located at King’s Island amusement park. This was the first shuttle loop coaster manufactured by Arrow Dynamics.

Banshee was the original name of the B&M stand up coaster Mantis (1996-2015). The announcement of the original name led to public backlash, as people thought the name was too dark to be used for a roller coaster.